I’m thinking it may be because this guy could’ve saved her parents, or at least allowed Nastajia to try. But he didn’t. It’s a different argument than a difference of opinion about what is best for Dreamland, I think. This guy (it seems) could’ve kept a lot of pain and hardship and evil from Dreamland, but chose not to.

Had Niv somehow attempted to force Nastajia and Alex to make the decision for Dreamland that she wanted, I think we would’ve seen the same fire. But she’s left the decision in their hands, however tactlessly she made her own opinion known. When it comes to Staj’s parents, however, Niviene did all she could to help Staj and Alex find them.

Forgive me, but this whole scene still makes very little sense to me. I apologise- but I kinda sorta need a serious lot of storytelling logistics to make sense of it.

The people of Seraphopolis were exiled there 4,500 years ago; suddenly Nastajia’s parents arrive, and receive instant trust. The very same night, the gate gets stolen by nightmare fiends. They entrust their top-secret advantage, the flying devices, to this strangers and just let them go off on a suicide mission, no questions asked! I can see why Nastajia expects them to immediately rise up and take sides in favour of her parents- but I don’t see why it would make sense for them to do so; why THEY should want to? Because they’re elves? Because they helped their stranded ancestors? Well, so did Nicodemus. How are they supposed to know he is in league with the Nightmare Realm? Why should they trust these elves more than him?

I think all this requires a little bit more exposition, to make sense.

Well, her parents only “arrived” there because they had been kidnapped by Nicodemus as a ruse to lure rescue from Seraphopolis. This allowed the wraiths hidden on the pirate ship close proximity to use the shadows to steal the portal (or perhaps, simply revealed the location of Seraphopolis, allowing the wraiths to use the shadows).

I don’t think the Seraphs are ignorant of Dreamland…I’m quite sure they knew exactly who Nastajia’s parents were.

Nicole_ Scott did say that the Serapheim (the antique plural describing a certain order of angels somehow seems appropriate to me ^^) have their own ways of knowing what goes on in Dreamland, but still; there is a difference between knowing what the King and Queen of elves look like, and knowing these persons as trustworthy persons. If the King and Queen of elves did not know how to contact the Seraphopolis king directly, they were -still- strangers to the current ruler.

Have to say I agree with you two. I really enjoy the story, but Nastaljia’s rant makes little to no sense—especially from a supposedly mature elvin queen. About the only thing that would actually cause a fellow monarch to care would be the, “Nicodemus usurped Arthur’s throne,” not the dramatic, “He stole my childhood and parents.” I could honestly see the Pharaoh saying, “Suck it up, we all have hardships.”

She’s unleashing all the pain and distress she’s felt for the past few years. She had no idea where her parents were or if they were alive or not, she had to assume rulership of the Elves before she was ready even as Nicodemus was becoming ever more dictatorial, dangerous, and oppressive, everything was going bad… and now she finds out a word from the Pharaoh could have changed all that, maybe even prevented it. So she’s lashing out. I suspect she – and we – will soon learn more about what’s going on, why her parents were allowed to set out on what might well have been a suicide mission, and that things are not quite as they seem. And that she’ll apologize once she’s got all the facts…

add to what eee said the fact that, while she is adult, about Alex’s age, she is not necessarily all that mature, and under a lot of pressure being regent, missing the wisdom of her parents, and so on. She is mature, but she probably has some growing up to do still.

It’s precisely because she’s been an acting monarch that her attitude seems off. This is the same elven princess who did not move a muscle in Nicodemus’ throne room when they brought in Alex as a prisoner, and suddenly as a guest of another monarch, who just told her they rescued her parents, she starts tossing out all her pain. Maybe because she feels a lot more able to do so.
However, it’s not Nastajia’s attitude that bugs me but the logical underpinnings of the scene.

Been a while on commenting but I’m also kind of confused. It seems more like Nastajia is accusing them more out of anger than anything else. Although, with a name like “The Guardians”, you’d think they’d do more Guardian…ing. I guess we’ll find out why tomorrow. ^__^

On the one hand, I feel Nastajia presents a valid point about their non-involvement. When you potentially have the power to make a change for the better and elect not to do so, it’s not generally perceived as a “good thing.”

On the other hand, they were forced into their current lifestyle, location, and “policital platform” by the powers-that-be. It was either be treated as prisoners of war or live on an island that was separate from Dreamland and the Nightmare Realm where they “could not interfere.” This is according to the story we learned from the ruins under the sea on this page and the page before it.

It may be that Nastajia, in the emotional heat of the moment, has forgotten that these are decendants of people who were faced with ill treatment once they were abandoned in Dreamland. Their floating-island city is as much a refuge as anything. It’s probably difficult for them to even consider getting involved in affairs outside their borders when the idea that they couldn’t or wouldn’t is probably what protected them from a worse fate so long ago.

The bow string has an odd bend.
It seems a rant is warranted to get the princess’ anger out. I only hope the king answers her allegations in a more reserved tone. I’ll be crushed if he just says, “whatevs”.

We are forbidden to act, we may only watch…now why do i think Time Lords of Gallifrey here all we needed was a rouge agent or two from that castle going around meddling in the affairs of Dreamland and the picture would be complete.

Reading the comments from earlier pages, a lot of people weren’t too fond of Nastajia, treating her like some overreacting emo. I, for one, think she is and always has been the most kick-butt character in the series.

I wouldn’t say I think she’s an “overreacting emo.” I feel like she’s reacting based on her emotions, but it’s a normal/expected reaction given her circumstances…it’s just not necessarily the best or most appropriate response for a member of royalty who should be acting on behalf of others as much as (if not more than) on their own behalf.

I wonder what their deeper reasoning is though (I’m guessing it’s not as simple/plain as being ‘forbidden to interfere’ an age ago, as frankly that’s rather weak considering how much things have changed since then. Though that begs the question of how much they actually know, or knew when it was happening.)

This reminds me, weirdly, of Dr. Manhattan in Watchmen. That moment in the comic where we get a glimpse of how weird/confusing it is to be him, seeing the future/past/present simultaneously, and where we gain a deeper understanding of what he meant when he said that he couldn’t stop/prevent certain things from happening because for him they had already happened.

Going back to TDC, hopefully he’ll (the king that is) give a satisfactory response before Staj really loses it (I don’t think she’s really lost her temper completely yet, rather she’s in the process of doing so). Also, whilst I get that they had their reasons for not getting involved (or rather, not getting involved anymore then they already were), it was actually quite risky in a sense. Power by it’s nature likes to grow, and there’s no reason why, at some point, having conquered all of Dreamland completely, the Nightmare Realm wouldn’t have sent the wraiths to finish off the job with Seraphopolis, which by the Kings own admission was at a severe disadvantage the last time they ‘attacked’. Had it been a real attack, there might not be a Seraphopolis left anyway.

Hmm, now I’m wondering if this in itself was also a contributory factor? (i.e. fear of the Wraiths).
Oh! One other thing I just realised, the whole ‘shall not interfere’ directive was pretty much made redundant by the very nature of what happened anyway. Thou shall not interfere… even though they initially involved THEMSELVES in the rescue of the Elven King and Queen, only to then have their portal stolen by way of ruse, only to THEN give the King and Queen wings to go pay the Nightmare Realm a visit.

Yeah, no interference. I imagine Staj’s thoughts are along the lines of ‘in for an arrow in for a sword’ at this point! 😛

I’d say any agreement to stay isolated from the rest of Dreamland has been invalidated. Y the theft of the portal by Abaddon. Still, we should not ignore the possibility that Seraphopolis may be vulnerable to threats we don’t know about yet.

Sent from my phone while trapped by a traffic jam on I-81 in Virginia on my way home from a week in Tennessee.

Sorry ’bout dat. I was tied up with family and didn’t get any closer than Tellico Lake in any case. I figured you have enough on your plate at the moment. At least I found time to get the husband of my niece interested in TDC. Maybe some other time.

This makes it make all the more sense to have them steal the wings. If these people are forbidden, they’d:

A) Not attack a nightmare realm ship (though maybe they are not forbidden from interacting with the nightmare realm? Clarification on that? Is the nightmare realm truly part of dreamland or an adjacent land?).
B) Not get involved with Nastajia’s parents regardless.
C) If they did attack the ship, they’d have made as quiet an attempt as possible to return the king and queen to their homeland (as this may fit with Seraphopolis’ position of being Dream-Switzerland-Bhutan).
D) They would have had a single representative meet Alex’s party and kindly tell them to go away.

This guy is a horribly inept ruler. He had two jobs! Guard the portal and not interact with dreamlanders. Heh.

I kinda assumed that the interaction with the ship was a defensive measure. It did seem to sail (fly?) into the area patrolled by the Guardian scouts. Perhaps this is just the first time that such a ship carrying Dreamlander prisoners was intercepted, and such attacks against intruding pirates have happened before?
Given that the king of the Guardians says that they watch but not interact, it’s understandable that he would know who the king and queen of elves were, and therefore allow them some kind of privilege: leaving. Plus, from knowing what goes on in Dreamland, he would understand their intentions by going to the Nightmare Realm, and with the wraiths already in control of the portal, it’s not like their location is a secret anymore.
Since Alex and company arrived via the Sister platform things, which brought them right to the city, and he knew Alex was the king of Dreamland, he probably decided that welcoming them was the best option rather than trying to resist them.

What I’m curious about is, if the Guardians have avoided involvement thus far in Dreamland, how did they end up with one of the tablets, which as I understood it, were created after Nicodemus seized the throne, a mere 600 years ago?